


A Matter of Faith

by story_monger



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angsty Schmoop, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 04:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/story_monger/pseuds/story_monger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel and his family live on a small farm in a post-apocalyptic America. They do well enough to survive, even with the recent drought threatening famine. They have their faith, and in the past it's always been enough. But then two men in an ancient black automobile show up and start asking questions. Questions that force Castiel to seriously consider where he and his family came from and what it implies for their future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Matter of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> This was part of the SPN Reverse Bang. Many thanks to my partner, the extremely talented [the_poette](http://the-poette.livejournal.com), who created the art that inspired this story. Also thank you to LJ user autumn_lilacs for her careful and detailed edits and comments.
> 
>  
> 
> [Inspo tag found here](http://story-monger.tumblr.com/tagged/a-matter-of-faith)

Castiel saw the cloud of dust through the kitchen window and paused. Water dripped from his hands into the washtub, and the mound of soap bubbles floating in the dishwater crackled in the sudden silence.

The automobile was moving fast, and dust shot up behind it like it had a devil’s intent.

“Castiel.” He turned his head and found Rachel drying the salad bowl, her head tilted his way. “What is it?”

“An automobile.” Castiel angled his head against the dust-grimed window to watch the vehicle disappear down the road.

“An automobile,” Rachel repeated. She rubbed her dishtowel over the salad bowl a few extra times, her sleeve hiking up with each movement to reveal the dove gray feathers inked across her forearm. She sucked in her cheeks. “Hope it’s not trouble,” she said.

Castiel peered at the road, but the dust cloud had all but dissipated.

He sank his hands back into the dishwater while Rachel placed the salad bowl on its shelf. He fished out a plate with generous bits of dinner still crusted on. Probably Anael’s. She was the only one who’d think to leave food uneaten.

Castiel scraped the beans from the plate with a small swell of regret, and it crossed his mind whether soapy beans soaked in dishwater would be safe to eat. He only contemplated it a moment. He wasn’t quite that hungry.

Anael was just lucky that Castiel had dish duty today. If Hester, Uriel or heaven forbid _Naomi_ found these beans, Anael would get sent up to Michael’s office for sure. Instead, Castiel gathered up his sister’s wasted food and dropped it in the compost bin while Rachel had her back turned.

After dishes, Castiel went outside to start on his afternoon chores. He cleaned out the chicken coop with less care than Samandriel would have liked if he’d been present. But Samandriel was always too persnickety about his animals, and since he wasn’t around, Castiel risked it.

He kept half an eye to the road, just in case the automobile chose to drive past again. But through the course of his chores, all he observed were soft veils of dust kicked up by the wind, Uriel appearing to dump the compost, and the dog streaking across the yard to bark at ravens that had chosen to hang about the farm the last few days.

The ravens never paid her much heed, flapping on top of trees or buildings and squawking philosophically at her yips and yowls. When he’d finished feeding the chickens Castiel took a few minutes to stand in the coop’s shade and watch them. There were two of them, glossy feathered and black as tar.

The sun began to bake the earth in earnest, and the dog wandered over to Castiel to plop into the soft soil at his feet. Her coat was too long and coated in dust, and little clouds of it mushroomed into the air when Castiel gave her ears a ruffle. She nosed at Castiel’s hand when he stopped, so Castiel set down his bucket and rubbed at her properly. The dog lapped up the attention, sprawling into the soil with a huff. When Castiel’s hands found her belly, he paused. It was much rounder than a farm dog had a right to, especially compared to the stick-like feeling of her bones against her skin.

“Puppies,” Castiel sat back on his haunches. The dog twisted her head about, fanning her tail questioningly. “Puppies, you stupid, sweet girl,” Castiel scratched under the dog’s chin, and her eyes squinted shut. “You’d better make sure you can take care of them,” Castiel ordered her. “Food’s already scarce, and no one’s going to spare their share for a bunch of pups.”

The dog’s tongue lolled from her mouth, pink as taffy.

***

The beginnings of evening rolled around. Castiel stood barefoot in the southernmost cornfield, checking for blight and insect damage. The soil felt soft and warm between his toes. No cracks in the earth yet, but he supposed that unless rain arrived soon, it was only a matter of time.

The dog had decided to join Castiel. She darted from him every few seconds to follow some scent before bounding back.

“Enjoy that while you can,” Castiel warned her.

His stomach began to tighten and make small gurgling sounds, but it wasn’t enough to warrant approaching Rachel later on for a slice of bread. He thought about the beans Anael had left behind and bit his lip with a prick of resentment. He kept moving.

The sky hung in low swathes of dusky blue above him, the heat-laden stillness of the late afternoon punctuated by cicadas trilling in the tall grass. Castiel ran his hand over corn leaves as he moved through the field, trying to remember how tall the stalks had been this time last year. To his right, the main road ran beneath a series of trees, all growing dim in the evening light.

Castiel took the noise for wind at first. Then he recognized it as voices filtering toward him, muffled and hard to discern.

“Is it a part we can find anywhere?”

“Dunno. Depends on whether they’ve got any old cars lying around.”

Something metal clanked.

“It’s getting dark.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

Castiel creeped toward the edge of the field, to where the corn surrendered to tall grass.

“Seriously, Dean, we’re low on ammunition already.”

A long pause followed.

“Give me five more minutes. I might still coax this thing into working.”

A white and black blur shot past Castiel; her barks cut off the two men’s conversation.

“No,” Castiel mouthed, and reached empty-handed for the dog. At that moment, he wished vehemently he had a name he could use to command her, but no one had ever bothered to give her one.

“The hell?” someone cried out.

“It’s fine, just a dog.” Castiel heard the dog whining, and could imagine her dumb, wispy tail waving back and forth.

“Dean—?”

“Who’s out there?” A voice carried across the tall grasses, and Castiel’s heart sank. He tried to determine if he could make a break for the house, but he knew he wouldn’t have the stealth or speed. So he cleared his throat with a grunt and advanced a few paces.

“She’s not dangerous,” he called out, and hoped he sounded benign. “She’s a little weird, but—oh good God.” A man in a leather jacket had a gun pointed at him. Castiel felt the blood not so much drain as dump from his face.

“Dean!” A second man, tall, with hair that just brushing his shoulders, scrambled from where he’d been leaning against a black automobile with its hood propped open. The dog yipped and tried to weave through his legs. “Stop it.”

“Who are you?” Dean asked, eyes never wavering from Castiel.

“Ca…ah…Castiel. I’m Castiel,” Castiel said, wondering if he should be raising empty hands. Dean didn’t look impressed.

“Dean,” the tall man repeated, and his hand came up to all but cover his companion’s. “Seriously, stop.” Dean flicked his glance to the man, then sniffed and let his gun fall to his side. The next second he jumped backwards when the dog reared on her hind legs, tail still a blur. She fell back to the ground and twisted onto her back, exposing her rounded belly. Everyone regarded her matted fur and pink tongue hanging from between yellow teeth.

“Dude, your guard dog sucks.” Dean glanced up at Castiel.

“She um…” Castiel inhaled and placed his hands on his hips, just to steady himself. “She wandered onto the farm a few months ago. Not really a guard dog.”

The tall man took pity on her and bent down to scratch her beneath the chin. Her eyes shone beatifically.

“I wasn’t sneaking up or anything,” Castiel said. “I was checking the corn and I heard…people….”

Dean’s head cocked.

“You live around here?” he asked.

“Our house is a ten minute walk that way,” Castiel pointed behind him. “This is the edge of our property.”

“That so?” Dean scratched at his cheek and surveyed the land as if with fresh eyes. “Didn’t know.”

“So really,” his companion spoke up from where he was still petting the dog. “If anyone’s pointing guns, it shouldn’t be us.” Dean gave him a hard look.

“How was I supposed to know?” He glanced at Castiel as he said this.

“Hey, we’re sorry,” the tall man stood, causing the dog to whine at him. “Our car broke down.”

“No,” Castiel blurted. “I mean.” He cleared his throat. “You’re fine.” Castiel looked around at the deepening dusk. “You shouldn’t be out here past sunset though. We had a coven sighted a day west of here. Vampires move fast.”

“We move faster,” Dean said. Castiel’s nose wrinkled.

“If you did, you wouldn’t be human.” Castiel paused, just in case these two were monsters copying humans, because that would have been a perfect chance to attack him. They looked at him instead, the tall man thoughtfully and Dean defiantly.

“We don’t actually have dead man’s blood on us—“

“Sam.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the tall man—Sam—turned to Dean, hair flying. “Did you want to get killed tonight? ‘Cause I don’t.” Dean glared at him, and Sam seemed to take it as allowance to turn to Castiel and say, “We’re going to need some help. Our car’s not going anywhere right now.”

“I can’t in any good conscience send you into town at this hour,” Castiel said. He hesitated, then added, “You’ll have to come back to the farmhouse.”

“We can’t leave Baby here by herself—“ Dean started.

“It’s a steel car covered in warding symbols. It’ll be fine,” Sam told him

Dean took a moment to run his hand through his hair.

“Fine,” he muttered.

Ten minutes later, the dog still weaving through all their legs, the three of them approached the farmhouse. The windows flickered yellow from the firelight within. Castiel hesitated and turned to the two men.

“Michael will let you stay here,” he said. “But he’s going to be thorough about making sure you’re not a danger.”

“How?” Sam asked.

“Lots of questions,” Castiel said. He led them into the house with his shoulders back and chin up, trying to look like he had a handle on the situation.

Hael saw them first, and her blue eyes widened. Uriel, Samandriel, and Hester, already gathered for Bible reading, turned in their seats to take in the sight of the strangers. A beat of pressing silence.

Then Raphael stood. He tilted his head at Castiel, Dean, and Sam.

“Well,” he folded his hands. “To whom do we owe the pleasure?”

“Um, hi,” Sam lifted a hand. “Our car broke down on the road near your property? We were hoping for a place to stay for the night.”

Raphael’s eyes narrowed before his hand moved to slide his silver knife from the sheath hanging from his belt. Castiel heard the floorboards creak behind him, and glanced back to find that Sam’s stance had widened.

“You’ll permit me to check?” Raphael asked. “Can’t be too cautious in these cursed times.” After several seconds, Dean tilted his head down in a nod. Raphael approached the two men, several eyes pinned on him while he pressed the flat of the blade against each of their skins. He then produced a flask of holy water and had each of them take a swig. No burning. No black eyes. Castiel’s shoulders relaxed.

“Come with me,” Raphael ordered, ushering the men up the stairs to Michael’s office. Castiel almost moved to join them, then realized his presence would be useless. So he watched Raphael, Sam, and Dean disappear into the second story, his teeth worrying at his bottom lip.

After a moment, Castiel moved across the room and collapsed into his chair. He flicked his eyes away when Anael gave him an exaggerated expression of ‘what was that about?’

He scanned the room and counted eight of his brothers and sisters present tonight. It took a moment to puzzle out who was missing, to remember that Balthazar had left that morning to bring news and provisions to another branch of their family living a three-day’s walk to the north.

“Hey.” Castiel turned to find Gabriel plopping into the seat next to his, an apple in his hand. “Those two have an automobile?”

“A black one,” Castiel nodded, straightening.

“Huh,” Gabriel bit into his apple. His favorite kind of apple: just starting to shrivel and maddeningly sweet. It was the best Gabriel could do between the chocolates and candies they came across once in a very great while. “Wonder if they’ll let us take a look at it.”

“Maybe.” Castiel picked at his lower lip. He’d never seen an automobile up close.

Michael, Raphael, Dean, and Sam came down the stairs within fifteen minutes, Michael with the Bible in his hand. Voices died down as Michael cut across the circle of chairs.

“We are joined by guests tonight,” he gestured behind him. “We’re going to be polite and spare them any more questions. Raphael? Can we manage two more chairs?”

Castiel watched Dean and Sam gravitate toward one another as they regarded his family. When the chairs arrived, they sat with their knees touching.

Michael opened with the usual prayer, and then turned the Bible to the Book of Revelations. His voice turned deep and sonorous.

“Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them,” Michael read. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

Castiel always wondered if Revelations was meant to be a story of what should have been or what was still to come. Because if demons and monsters had already taken the Earth, then it stood to reason that all had not gone as planned. No one had been saved. No paradise to be found. Just Hell on an earth that might still be salvaged.

Castiel glanced over to find Sam watching Michael with a cocked head and intense eyes, while Dean picked at a hangnail.

Michael closed the Bible nearly forty-five minutes later. He them sit in silence while the fireworks of the end of days still crashed across their minds. Castiel’s hand twitched while he considered whether to raise it to ask a question. He knew how he’d phrase it too. ‘If we already live in a world of monsters and demons,’ he’d have asked, ‘does that mean Revelations already happened and it just failed? Is this just what’s left?’ Michael would think about it. He’d give a good answer.

“Let us pray,” Raphael extended his hands. Castiel exhaled and took Uriel’s large, soft hand and Hester’s cold one. He bowed his head as Raphael sang a blessing on their household, their family and guests gathered that night, and their family scattered across the corners of the globe. He prayed, as he always did, for an end to the demons and the monsters and the benign cruelties that preyed upon them.

“To You we send our prayers and our hopes, our devotion and obedience, Lord Father,” Raphael said. “Amen.”

“Amen,” the family echoed. Hael slipped her hand from Anael’s to touch her forehead, then her chest, then each shoulder. Some habit she had learned from her old home in the west.

Hael had blown in from there on a trading caravan some months ago. She came with the clothes on her back, a flask of water, and stories of a demon pack that had obliterated the rest of her household. She could sometimes be persuaded into describing her old home, located next to a deep rift in the earth that dove down and down until it came upon a raging river. Castiel had a hard time believing her when she first shared these stories.

The room began to swell with the sound of people standing, stretching, asking whose turn it was to milk the cows tomorrow morning and whether anyone thought the rains might come.

“Castiel.” Castiel straightened and turned toward Michael, who leaned across Hester’s recently vacated seat. “Can I ask you to set our guests up as far as bedding?”

Castiel nodded, then drifted to a stand and approached the two men. Dean lifted his chin and offered a half smile as Castiel approached.

“This is what you folks do for fun out here?” Dean asked, hands deep in his pockets.

“It keeps our minds on the Lord,” Castiel told him as his spine stiffened. Dean looked like he was about say something, but Sam coughed. Dean’s eyes flicked to the ceiling.

“So,” he stood. “Michael said there’d be grub after the Bible.”

Rachel was uncommonly generous with the rations she permitted Sam and Dean. The men were, in turn, polite. They didn’t ask for seconds.

Rachel departed to bed while Castiel was still busy piling extra blankets on the floor in front of the pot-bellied stove in an attempt to create something tolerable.

“We’ve slept on worse,” Sam told him when Castiel apologized for the minimal cushioning. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I do worry,” Castiel stood and frowned at the blankets. “It gets drafty at night.”

“We can handle drafts,” Dean said around a bite of bread. Castiel nodded and stuck his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels.

“Did Michael interrogate you?” he asked.

“More or less,” Sam mirrored Castiel’s position. “I think he was making sure we weren’t human turncoats.”

“I thought he might,” Castiel offered. “We just heard about a community not too far from here that had a turncoat. A werewolf pack got a human to work for them. Cutting down defenses and letting them into houses. It’s frightening.”

“You have many werewolves around here?” Dean asked.

“The next town over had one a few years ago,” Castiel said. “Balthazar went over there to help. He saw it tear a man’s face off before they managed to kill it. He said he couldn’t sleep for days after that.”

“Can’t blame the guy,” Dean commented, popping the last bite of bread into his mouth.

“Which one was Balthazar?” Sam jerked his thumb toward the sitting room.

“Balthazar isn’t here right now. He’s meeting with another branch of the family.”

“And he’s your brother too?”

Castiel nodded.

“Hang on, how does that work?” Dean leaned forward. “Are you all actually blood related?”

“I don’t think so,” Castiel shrugged. “But they’re my brothers and sisters in every way that matters.”

“Mm.” Sam rubbed at his mouth, a frown just visible on his brow. “Then are you a religious order?” Castiel blinked.

“Our faith is what holds us together,” he said, his words slipping out in a ponderous line. “But we’re not…there’s no vows. We’re not monks.”

He ran a hand over his face almost without realizing it.

“I was just wondering. With the matching tattoos,” Sam gestured.

“Oh,” Castiel twisted his forearm to catch sight of black feathers. “Yes, I suppose we all have them.”

“Why feathers?” Dean tilted his head.

“Wings,” Castiel corrected him. “In honor of angels that fell in the War. That’s what I’ve been told.”

“You don’t actually know?” Dean asked.

“I—“ Castiel paused and licked his lips, aware of a faint pressure building in the back of his head. “I’ve always had these markings.” He lifted his chin and his voice came out forceful. “They’re a sign of faith. Of respect.”

“Okay,” Sam said, his voice gentle. “We were just curious.”

The pressure in Castiel’s head continued to build.

“I have chores in the morning,” Castiel said. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“No,” Sam all but murmured. “We’re fine. Thank you.”

Castiel left them in a hurry.

***

They were gone when Castiel emerged from his and Anael’s room the next morning.

“They wanted to get into town as early as possible,” Samandriel told them at breakfast. “Michael is letting them borrow the mule to help them push their vehicle there.” He didn’t sound thrilled at the idea.

“That makes sense. They’ll want to get there before the heat sets in,” Naomi commented.

Castiel scrutinized his bowl of thin porridge. He hoped the automobile took another few days to fix.

***

The next morning was a Sunday. Castiel perched on his cot, picking at a loose thread in his good pants while Anael teased her hair into something that resembled the picture in the Society pages spread across the dresser top. Castiel thought that Anael had a little too much hair for her ultimate goal, but he didn’t say anything, in case his sister took his words to heart.

“Castiel.”

“Mm?”

“You’re a million miles away, I swear,” Anael squinted at the tin lid that served as their mirror, her hair gathered up in handfuls. “I said, hand me a few hair pins.”

Castiel leaned forward to grab four of the pins collected in what used to be a biscuit tin and handed them up to Anael’s waiting hand. She stuck three in her mouth and shoved one into her hair. Castiel watched her place the rest of the pins with care—checking the magazine picture every few seconds—before letting her hands drift away. Her hair billowed above her head, falling over her shoulders in pretty red waves.

“It looks very nice,” Castiel offered.

“It’s not quite right,” Anael looked between the magazine and her reflection with a scrunched nose and narrowed eyes. “But I didn’t treat my hair with egg white and olive oil beforehand like they say to, so it’s to be expected I suppose.”

“Where is your sense of commitment?” Castiel asked slyly. Anael barked with laughter.

“Where would my sense of self preservation be if I asked Michael for allowance to buy _olive oil_?” she asked. After a moment she tacked on, “and using eggs to soak my hair. I think Rachel would just laugh at me.” Castiel thought back to soapy beans.

“Can I have the mirror now?” he asked. “We’re leaving soon.”

“You look gorgeous as always, Cassie,” Anael flashed him a toothy grin. “Not to worry, blue eyes and bird’s nest hair always brings in the suitors.” Castiel’s hand shot up to smooth down his hair before he could prevent himself, and Anael giggled as she slipped on a light jacket that covered the brown-dappled ink wings sprawled across her back and shoulders.

Ten minutes later, Castiel and Anael stepped into a gray pre-dawn light with the rest of their brothers and sisters. The land still looked fuzzy, and the dog was a blur as she danced around everyone.

Castiel peered above them. Clear skies, far as he could see. Castiel dropped his eyes and found the edge of his big toe peeping from a hole in his right shoe. He wriggled the toe thoughtfully, then shifted his foot so that the toe disappeared from view. New shoes were expensive and a visit to the cobbler’s didn’t come cheap, either.

Their group began walking down the dirt road, on its way to the church sitting on the edge of the town. Their single wagon was too small to carry everyone; Raphael always pointed out that they were all hale and hearty adults, and that a long walk was a good way to clear the mind of worldly thoughts before worshipping the Father.

Castiel liked to imagine his worldly worries as piles of ash sprawled in the dust next to his footsteps. He left behind the hole in his shoe and the lack of clouds and the way he’d heard Naomi and Michael speaking in low voices when they didn’t know he was near, about how low the coffers were. The stunted corn, the dog’s doomed puppies, Hael’s lost family, the mild pinching around his midsection that meant they’d kept to strong tea that morning for breakfast. It became ashes and drifted behind Castiel to mix in with the tiny clouds of dust his footsteps raised.

Then Castiel’s mind met black automobiles and tall figures. A small smile with dimples and hard green eyes made translucent by sunlight. It was not so much a worry as a recording playing over and over in his mind’s eye. It was still playing when they arrived at the church. When Castiel sat in the front pew between Samandriel and Hester. The town filtered in, people speaking in low voices, greeting each other. Michael climbed toward the pulpit and raised a hand for silence.

It made Castiel wonder whether he ought to feel guilty. He decided the Lord would understand; it wasn’t often that fresh faces came into town.

They went to Hebrews 13 for the Old Testament reading that day.

“Let brotherly love continue,” Michael read. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourself also in the body.”

But no one could completely entertain strangers these days, Castiel thought. Michael himself couldn’t, not without first establishing that they wouldn’t turn out to the opposite of angels. Castiel reminded himself that the Bible had been written ages ago. People didn’t know any better back then.

The heat increased in sliding increments, and homemade paper fans began to appear. Castiel didn’t have one, so he employed the practice of sitting as still as possible, as if that would keep his skin from sticking to his clothes. Michael’s voice washed over them like syrup – slow and deep. Castiel’s mind sank away from Sam and Dean, the story of Jesus turning water into wine, and focused on a space of nothingness in the back of his mind, where he curled up and let himself rest.

He was not asleep. But his mind swam in odd direction. Lights seemed to flash at him from distances too far to fathom, and Castiel imagined them as stars. Or angels.

“Castiel.” An elbow met his ribs. Samandriel’s eyes flicked back up to Michael when he was satisfied that his brother was awake. Castiel shifted in the pew and the lights faded back into his subconscious.

The service ended around noon. When Castiel stood, his pants felt heavy with his own sweat and he needed to pee. The central aisle was not busy, so he managed to make it to the exit with a little ducking and weaving. Just as he pushed the shuddering wooden doors open, he felt someone approaching behind him. He glanced back as he kept the door open with three lingering fingers.

“Thanks,” a tall man with shoulder-length hair said.

Castiel almost stopped then and there, and only kept moving when a small part of his brain pointed out that Sam was going to crash into him otherwise. So Castiel ended up exiting the church in an almost-trip to the side.

“Sam,” he blurted, and Sam paused to look Castiel up and down.

“Oh, hi,” his face split into a grin. Castiel saw dimples again. “How’re you?”

“I’m well,” Castiel said automatically, then licked his lips. “I didn’t know you were still in town.”

“Yeah, turns out the Impala’s—hang on I’ll remember this.” Sam frowned into the distance before turning to Castiel with a triumphant smile. “The crankshaft. The crankshaft is on its last leg and is going to have to be replaced.”

“Replaced?” Castiel cocked his head. “From where? We don’t have things like that here.”

“Yeah we’re finding that out,” Sam’s expression turned grim. “Dean’s not giving up on the car, so we might have to leave it here and go on an expedition to the nearest city.”

“That’s a four-day trip by horse, at the very least.”

“It’s fine,” Sam shrugged. “Once when Dean and I were kids, our dad left us with a family friend, bought a horse, and rode a week to find a brake belt.”

“Your—are you and Dean brothers?”

“Do you not see our striking Winchester resemblance?” Sam asked, and the grin reappeared.

“Not at all,” Castiel confessed. He could hear the voices growing louder in the church. “Hey by the way,” Sam said. “We still have your mule. It’s in Margot’s stable. Samandriel said we could give it back today.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Castiel asked.

“Not really.” Now Sam thrust his hands into his pockets and curled his shoulders forward. “I liked Michael’s reading the other night. Didn’t figure out he was a Pastor until Margot mentioned it yesterday.”

“He’s very good at what he does,” Castiel nodded. He looked back at the church. “Let me go to the bathroom first, and I can come get the mule,” he said. “Everyone will be at Sunday brunch for the next few hours.”

“Yeah, ok,” Sam nodded once. “Sounds good.”

Once his bladder was taken care of, Castiel followed Sam’s looming figure through the all but empty town. It wasn’t the smallest town in the area, but it was by no means the biggest, so church tended to drain it of its activity.

They neared the town’s only inn, run by Margot Lincoln, and where Castiel knew Gabriel liked to sneak for poker games.

Sam led them to the stables. At one end of the building, the black automobile sat in dusty sunlight. Dean’s broad back bobbed beneath the open hood. Castiel spotted their mule ensconced in a shadowy corner of one of the stalls, ears flicking and eyes drooped.

“Poking at it isn’t going to fix anything,” Sam called out.

“I’m not poking I’m tuning everything up,” Dean emerged, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a greasy forearm. The sunlight picked out freckles that Castiel hadn’t seen before.

Dean caught sight of Castiel and nodded once.

“Hey, Cas” He reached for his waterskin and squirted a stream into his mouth.

“Castiel,” Castiel corrected him, eyes on the vehicle. It looked alien, so large and bulky. And far more metal than Castiel thought was really necessary. Then again, what did a farm boy know?

“Beauty, isn’t she?” Dean asked, approval all but radiating from him. “Probably last of her kind.” Castiel nodded, then caught sight of Sam as he smirked at the ground behind a curtain of hair.

“Sam said a part of the engine is broken?” Castiel ventured.

“Yeah,” Dean scratched the back of his head and made a face at the automobile’s engine. “Bound to happen sooner or later. Just wish it had happened closer to a city.”

“Hey, at least we weren’t in the middle of nowhere,” Sam pointed out as he settled himself on a pile of timber. “We’d be crow meat by now.”

“Mm.” Dean dove back into the engine. He started to hum some tune Castiel didn’t recognize.

“You know,” Castiel said, sitting next to Sam. “Raphael and Gabriel will be travelling to the city in a few days to sell our barley stores. If you tell them what you want, they can probably find it. Gabriel’s an excellent haggler.”

“Really?” Dean straightened. “He know anything about engines?”

“I’m not sure,” Castiel shrugged. “But you should ask him about it.” Dean and Sam exchanged a look.

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Sam offered. “We could try earning our keep doing jobs around town while we wait.”

Castiel thought of the tea they’d had for breakfast, but remained silent.

“Eh,” Dean returned to the engine. “Seems kind of quiet here as far as our line of work.”

“What’s your line of work?” Castiel asked.

“Hunters,” Sam replied, leaning back.

“Oh,” Castiel tilted his head, a frown encroaching on his face.

“What?”

“That seems like an unnecessarily dangerous way to earn a living.”

“It keeps us fed,” Dean called out. “And we’re good at it.” Somehow, Castiel did not doubt that.

“How often do you get trouble?” Sam asked.

Castiel tilted his head up at the ceiling to think. “The last serious attack we had must have been three years ago. A succubus slipped into town without anyone realizing.” Dean straightened slowly. Sam’s eyebrows knit together.

“What?” Castiel asked, looking between them.

“Three years ago?”

“Well, we had a demon skirt the town ten months ago, but it never tried to enter.”

“Oh, I guess it just avoided the town. Got it.” Dean’s face had screwed into incredulousness. “Are you serious?”

“Is that not normal?” Castiel asked. Sam huffed.

“Normal is an attack a week,” Dean leaned forward. “Normal is not trusting the people you’ve been living with the past twenty years because they might turn around and eat you.”

Castiel blinked.

“We take precaution,” he said, his words careful. “We burn our dead with their earthly belongings. Michael has made sure that everyone in the town has some basic knowledge of exorcisms. Salt is hoarded for emergencies. Everyone has silver, in the form of a weapon ideally. Do people not know about all that?”

“They do,” Sam said, drawing the second word out. “They just have a lot more occasion to use them.”

A breeze sifted through the barn, and the mule let out a sleepy grunt. Castiel interlaced his fingers.

“Maybe you have something protecting the land,” Sam offered. “Have you heard of anything like that?”

“Never,” Castiel turned to him. “I knew other towns had a harder time but…I thought we were just better organized. Do they really have an attack a week?”

“Dean was exaggerating,” Sam glanced up at his brother. “You know what? I bet you have old wards in the area. I’ve seen those things last years.”

“Wards,” Castiel nodded. But he knew other towns had wards as well. It didn’t explain anything.

Judging by the expressions on Dean and Sam’s faces, they were thinking the same thing.

***

Wards and inked wings and automobiles, long hair and dusty freckles buzzed through Castiel’s mind as he led the mule back to the farm that afternoon. And that evening as he listened to Michael read to them about Christ walking on water. And that night as Anael tossed and turned on her cot across the closet-like room.

The next day, he spent a full hour examining the black feathers splayed across his body. They glimmered in the sun, as if the ink had been metallic. If he brought the skin up close, he could see the finest details of barbs in hairline strokes. He had countless feathers that sifted across his arms and back, almost down to his legs. It must have taken forever to create.

It would make sense, he thought, for the pain of receiving the tattoos to have remained in his memory. The time involved, if nothing else. Yet he recalled nothing.

It left him feeling off kilter for several days.

“Are you sick?” Naomi asked him one day during supper. Castiel glanced up to find his sister watching him with sharp eyes. He flicked his eyes down and found the ash gray feathers just visible at her wrists. They caught the light with minute flecks of brilliant silver, like the specks of galena mineral he found in rocks around their property.

“Tired,” he offered.

“He’s been outside in the heat all day, leave him alone Naomi,” Hester said.

“You should be careful, Castiel,” Samandriel spoke up. “I heard Gregory Turner had a heat stroke the other day.”

“Did he really?” Hester asked

Castiel sifted his spoon through his soup—more water than anything else; he knew Rachel did her best—and let the conversation drift to other things. He hadn’t been lying. He was tired. Just not entirely due to heat.

“—going to have to find a crankshaft in the city and a container of gasoline. He’s offering good money for the service. Gasoline’ll be easy but engine parts are few and far between these days, y’know? It’ll be a hunt.” Castiel peered up the table to find Gabriel in conversation with Michael and Raphael.

“So we’ll be seeing more of them, I suppose,” Raphael stirred at his soup, his hand loose around the spoon. “What are they, wandering laborers?”

“Hunters,” Gabriel tilted his head forward, mouth curling into a smile. “I told him, we take care of ourselves around here. They’ll have to find other skills to offer.”

“Have you seen the hands on the big one?” Michael asked. “I bet he has some skill in the field.”

“You know haying is coming up soon,” Raphael pointed his spoon at Michael. “Few extra hands; might be worth it to get it in sooner.”

“What’s the rush?” Gabriel asked humorlessly. “No rain to worry about.”

“Faith, Gabriel,” Michael said, leaning down to sip from his spoon. “We must have faith.”

“Faith,” Gabriel repeated. His tone was polar opposite from Michael’s.

***

“Castiel.”

He looked up to find Hael approaching him with a basket perched on her hip. His wrist drifted from eye-level down into his lap, his fingers lingering on the black feathers.

“Are you busy?” she asked, sitting next to him on the porch. The sun caught their faces at a slant, lighting up her blue eyes.

“No,” Castiel admitted, straightening. He glanced into the basket. “Ah.”

“If you don’t mind.” Hael picked up a pea pod and cracked it open with a press of her thumbs. She scraped the peas in a bowl she had brought and dumped the shell at her feet.

“Have Gabriel and Raphael already left?” Hael asked as Castiel reached for a handful of pods.

“About an hour ago,” he said.

Hael heaved a sigh, pulling her long, dark hair from her neck and tying it up into a tail.

“What?” Castiel asked.

“Everyone travelling,” she said. “It makes me nervous.”

Castiel shelled another set of peas in silence.

“Gabriel and Raphael will watch out for one another,” he finally said.

“I know,” Hael said. Another pea pod. “But I still pray for them. Whenever I have a quiet moment. You know,” she grinned down at her lap. “At my old home we recited Psalms to each other when we had specific troubles. When one of our own was on the road, we spoke from Psalm 91:11. ‘For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.’ We also said Psalm 119:105, ‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path’ but I liked the angels better.”

Castiel’s stomach felt funny.

“Angels,” he repeated.

“I’ve always liked angels,” Hael nodded, reaching for more pea pods. “I like that we’re allowed to honor them with our bodies.”

Castiel dropped his eyes and watched Hael’s rusty red feathers—tinged with painstaking orange and green at their bases—ripple across her skin.

“Hael,” he said. Her face tilted toward him. “Do you remember getting that?” He pointed to her inked feathers. She twisted her arm to study them.

“You know, it must have been when I was very young,” she said after a moment. “These have been here forever. They’re beautiful, aren’t they? They’re the same colors as the canyon I’ve told you about.”

“They’re exquisite,” Castiel murmured. He paused in his pea shelling and raked a hand through his hair. “Do you think there are any angels left in Heaven?” he asked.

“Well, you’re just bouncing around topics aren’t you? I think there must be,” Hael said sensibly. “I know a great many fell during the War but there must still be more for the Final Judgment.”

“What if the Final Judgment already happened?” Castiel asked, the words slipping from chapped lips. “What if the War was it? Something went terribly wrong and this is how things will always be?”

Hael stared at him, then reached out and gripped at his upper arm with thin fingers.

“You don’t think like that,” she ordered. Castiel blinked at her, and Hael took a deep breath. “Castiel,” she spoke deliberately. “I watched a demon pull my favorite brother’s intestines out through his mouth. I watched my sister chased and killed for sport, then bled like a pig at slaughter. And the only thing that kept me alive enough to run from that place was my faith that our Father still sees our trials and that He still cares and that one day He will save us. If I stopped believing that for a second, I’d be dead. Do you understand?”

Castiel nodded, emotions numb. Hael released his arm with an expression of sudden embarrassment, and Castiel knew that he’d have bruises.

“Sorry,” he uttered. “I didn’t mean to—“

“It’s not your fault,” Hael cut him off. Castiel took several seconds to collect another handful of peas to shell. He felt as if he ought to say something comforting but he didn’t think himself capable. He remained silent until the basket of pea pods had been emptied—there weren’t as many as there really should have been—watching his feathers shimmer with each movement of muscle and tendon.

***

“Tea again,” Anael told Castiel when he all but tripped into the kitchen the next morning. It was the middle of the summer, so the floor did not feel cold through three layers of wool socks. But the sun had yet to rise and Castiel had not slept well that night.

He nodded through bleary eyes and accepted the tin cup Anael handed him. It smelled good, at least, probably one of Hester’s blends. Castiel let the hot liquid touch at his lips, and he watched Uriel and Rachel discuss the fence on the eastern boundary that would need to be replaced at some point. Anael sat in front of the stove, unabashed as a cat with her feet propped in front of its gentle heat. Samandriel stared at some point on the tabletop, probably thinking about the coyote Hester had reported seeing yesterday at supper. Hael was not present, and Castiel mentally winced as he recalled their conversation the day before.

He tried to imagine watching his family be killed, then lifted his mug to his lips and forced down a scalding sip.

“Morning Michael,” Rachel’s voice reached him. Castiel glanced up to find Michael entering the kitchen, hair still damp from where he had combed it down.

“Thank you,” Michael accepted the tea Rachel offered him, lifting his head to the kitchen in general. “Is anyone free this morning?” A few sleepy faces regarded him.

“I can wait to do chores,” Castiel finally said.

“Naomi is going into town today to pick up some things,” Michael glanced down at him. His eyes folded at the edges. “Margot asked if we could extend an offer to your friends. Hiring them to help with the wheat harvest and haying.”

“Why?” Anael asked, leaning back. “We don’t usually hire field hands.”

“Well we’re missing Raphael, Gabriel and Balthazar aren’t we?” Uriel pointed out. “It can’t hurt.”

“They need the work,” Michael sat heavily at the table. “Margot can only let them that room on credit for so long. It’s the least we can do for her to take them in.” Castiel looked down at his tea, and it was black enough to show his reflection. Messy hair and bags under his eyes.

“Why don’t you put on some clothes suitable for public once you finish with that,” Michael told him, voice low.

Fifteen minutes later, he and Naomi were hitching the mare to the wagon as the sun climbed out from the horizon. Naomi seemed to have her mind on other things, and Castiel didn’t mind working in silence. His thoughts drifted.

The sun rose in earnest while they traveled down the main road toward town. The mare’s brown rump rose and fell rhythmically, Naomi twitching the reins across its back every once in a while. Birdsong drifted to them from the tall grasses, and if Castiel paid attention he could see the goldfinches and titmice flashing through the foliage.

“You’ve spoken to them,” Namoi said, apropos of nothing.

“Them?”

“The people we’re hiring. Sam and something?”

“Sam and Dean.”

“Yes, that.” Naomi’s eyebrows had drawn together. “If I drop you off at the inn, can you find them and make sure they’re ready? The traders only came in last night and I know it’s going to be a madhouse getting any share of the flour and beans.”

“I can do that,” Castiel nodded. Then, because he couldn’t quite resist, “How exactly are we going to feed them?”

Naomi barked a laugh. “I’ll have you know that I was questioning this from the beginning. Cellar running empty, crops dying, oats all but gone—it’s tea for breakfast for a while.” Castiel stared at the side of Naomi’s tense face. “But you know Michael,” Naomi continued. “Pastor. Has to set a good example. Story of the woman in the temple with her few coins and all that.” Castiel shifted in his seat, hands coming to fold in his lap. The first cicada trilled from somewhere nearby, sharp and high.

***

Castiel found Sam and Dean in the inn, sitting on either side of a table. Margot could be heard somewhere in the back room as she sang along with the inn’s ancient radio.

They didn’t see him at first, and Castiel took the opportunity to watch the brothers as they conversed in low voices. Sam’s forehead was bunched in folds.

It smoothed when Castiel finally made a movement and drew his attention.

“Hey Cas,” Sam straightened, and Dean shifted in his seat as well. Castiel sat at the table, only to find it sticky. He kept his hands in his lap.

“It’s Castiel,” he reminded them. “How are you?”

“I mean, stuck in the ass crack of nowhere, but otherwise dandy,” Dean grinned.

“He doesn’t mean that about—” Sam said.

“Sure I do. No offense, man,” Dean tipped his mug toward Castiel before he took a draught. “It’s one of the nicer ass cracks I’ve seen.” Sam rolled his eyes.

Castiel’s mouth curled into a grin.

“I heard Michael offered you work with us?” Castiel ventured.

“Yeah,” Dean said the word around a sigh. “I kind of hate farm work as a rule but—“

“It’s our best option,” Sam shrugged. He lowered his voice. “Margot won’t admit it but her supplies are running low. We can’t pay her and she can’t just feed us out of generosity at this point.”

“Everyone’s supplies are dipping,” Castiel nodded, Naomi’s tense face flashing into his mind’s eye.

“Really?” Sam’s face fell. “I’m sorry—we’re kind of a burden, I think.”

“Not if you help us get the wheat in quicker,” Castiel said. “That means flour and bread and income.”

“Well, can’t say no to bread,” Dean raised his eyebrows at his brother. Sam’s mouth quirked into a humorless grin.

Naomi had told Castiel she’d find them at the inn as soon as she finished, so Castiel, Dean and Sam chatted for close to two hours waiting for her. Dean and Sam shared stories from their childhood, of the monsters that they and their late father had encountered over the years. Castiel listened rapturously and for a good long while he gave no thought to inked feathers or Wars or Hael.

“So what about you guys?” Dean asked after Sam had finished with the wendigo story. “This town must have some tales.”

“Not many,” Castiel gave a self-deprecating shrug. “Most of them are only interesting if you know the people involved.”

“How long has this place been here?” Sam asked, head tilting. “I was trying to find it in the records but Margot said they didn’t start official recordkeeping until about 30 years ago.”

“It’s like any town that popped up after the War,” Castiel leaned back in his chair. “It grew on its own and everyone was too busy surviving to take notes.”

“So when did your family show up?” Dean asked.

It took Castiel a moment to come up with any kind of answer.

“I’ve always lived here,” he said. “I suppose I was born here. Or came here as a baby.”

“You know who your parents were?” Dean asked.

For a wild moment, Castiel tried to do the math and determine if Michael could conceivably have sired him, or Naomi have carried him. But no, that made no sense.

“We were all orphans,” he heard himself say. “We found each other and become family. Though, I don’t remember that.”

Dean was nodding sagely, so Castiel’s words must have rang with some truth.

“You hear about that,” he told Castiel. “Child gangs. They can be dangerous. Guess you guys went the Bible direction.”

“Yes.” Castiel peered at the inn front door in case Naomi had arrived. He ran a tongue across chapped lips.

“I have a question,” he turned toward the brothers suddenly. “What did you learn about the War?”

“What about it?” Sam asked.

“We learned that the angels and demons had a…a great battle,” Castiel picked his words with care. “And the angels lost. All the fighting ripped open the membranes that used to separate Hell, Heaven, Purgatory and the Earth.”

“And that’s where the monsters and demons came from?” Sam asked, leaning forward. Castiel nodded.

“If that’s it, then where did the angels end up?” Dean asked. Castiel stared at him.

“I’ve definitely heard that story in other towns,” Sam said, nodding. “Especially in religious groups. But there are other theories. Some having to do with human wars and nuclear weapons. Or hunters – the old class of hunters, the ones who worked in secret – dying off and not keeping the monsters under control.”

“Which is it?” Castiel asked.

“Maybe none,” Sam shrugged. “Maybe all of them. Most things in history don’t have one cause.”

Unlike the Bible, Castiel mused. Everything was so clear in the Bible; it was always God completing some grander plan. And much like the enslaved Israelites in Egypt, Castiel had to wonder how on earth this fit into anything holy.

***

Sam and Dean moved in and proved to be good workers. They woke up with everyone else, ate what was put in front of them, didn’t extend their breaks longer than they needed to, and slept in the barn’s loft without complaint. In turn, the family grew less stiff with them and began including them in small private jokes and conversations. Anael especially grew fond of them, always smiling extra wide when Dean was around.

But somehow they remained _Castiel’s_ , and it wasn’t anything anyone argued. When harvest began in earnest, the three of them ended up with the same tasks. Castiel became as familiar with the smell of their sweat and skin as he was with his own.

The wheat had just slipped past the drought’s damage that year; the rains in the planting season had been more than decent. It wasn’t a bumper crop, Uriel announced, but it would keep them going.

“I don’t want to see a bumper crop then,” Dean announced on the third day of harvest. He’d taken his shirt off hours ago, and his freckled shoulders glistened gold-brown. He took a moment to straighten. His sickle hung from one hand while the other brushed sweat from the fringe of his hair.

“Tired already?” Castiel asked. “Not even midday yet.” From several paces away, Sam’s laughter drifted to them.

“Shut that trap, Cas,” Dean quirked his eyebrows. Castiel didn’t bother reminding him that his name was Castiel. That battle had been lost days ago. “I’m a sprinter, you know. Rush of adrenaline, stab of the knife, and you’re dead or done. I’m not designed for the marathon work.”

“Too bad,” Castiel mused as he swept his scythe through the golden wheat. “Haying will be unpleasant for you.” He glanced up to find Dean watching him. Or rather, watching his back. Castiel straightened.

“What?”’ he asked.

Dean coughed and gestured.

“I just…the ink’s well done,” he said. Castiel flexed his shoulders unthinkingly. He could feel the heat trapped in the black of the feathers, like a brand on his skin.

“All of them are masterful,” Castiel said. “They must have been done by one artist.” Dean’s eyes narrowed.

“You really have no idea where they came from?” he asked. Castiel bit at his lower lip.

“I don’t remember a lot of things,” he said. They stood there another moment; the sunlight and heat physical were things pressing against their skin until Castiel hefted his scythe and began working again. Dean followed suit.

Dean and Sam did that sometimes. Asked questions or noticed things that had never been remarkable. Sometimes Castiel resented them for it. But he didn’t think he’d ever have asked them to stop.

Another benefit of having the Winchesters around was the books Sam brought with him. He told Castiel that he had many more in the Impala, and that the collection he’d brought to the farmhouse only contained the most important.

“Do you mean the most rare?” Castiel asked one afternoon in the barn loft. Uriel had taken to permitting everyone a break during the hottest hour of the day, after both Samandriel and Hester had come too close to a heat stroke. The break would probably not last too long though. A stiff south wind kept things tolerable.

Castiel and Sam sat in the barn loft while Dean finished up his work. The dog, now much more rounded, had scrambled up to be with them and sagged against Sam’s thigh

“Some of them are pretty rare,” Sam nodded, handing Castiel a handful of books while he rooted through the box in front of him. “Others are just important to me.”

Castiel looked down at a faded blue book, hardbound. He flipped to the spine.

“Lord of the Rings,” he read aloud. His first thought was an account of divinely created rings, and he told Sam as much.

“Not really,” Sam laughed. “It’s fiction.” And that led to a long-winded explanation of wizards and people with fuzzy feet.

“It’s only funny,” Castiel commented when Sam had slowed down. “That the magic and wizards and…and dwarves are good things. You don’t hear about that.”

“Well this was written before the…the War, right?” Sam explained. “Things were different then. No one knew any better.”

Castiel had opened the book to a random page. And indeed, the paper was yellowed and brittle at its edges. The typeset’s style looked like it came from another era. It must have been nice, he reflected, to be able to write about magic rings with such innocence.

“Here’s something rare,” Sam pulled a much larger tome from the box. “Magic again, though not the fictional kind.”

“A grimoire?” Castiel asked. The dog lifted her head to snuff curiously at the book as it changed hands.

“Yep,” Sam grinned. “Our dad got it from an old friend of ours. We use it sometimes when a job involves witches or old gods.”

“ _A spell for fertility,_ ” Cas read. He turned a brittle page. “ _Grow serpents from enemy’s mouth._ Have you ever seen that?”

“Thank God no,” Sam leaned back, rubbing a hand through the dog’s fur. “Though we once fought a Gorgon.”

“How on earth did you avoid becoming stone?” Castiel asked.

“Don’t get too impressed,” Sam warned him. “It was blind.”

“Then why fight it?”

“Well, it was still terrorizing people,” Sam shrugged.

Castiel tilted his head back down to the book sitting in his crossed legs.

“Do you like fighting monsters?” he asked. Sam didn’t answer for a while, and Castiel peered up at him after too long a silence.

“No,” Sam’s voice broke the barn’s dusty silence. “I think…I think I’d have liked something different. A scholar in one of the big cities maybe. But Dad never…” he shook his head. “It wasn’t going to happen.”

“But now that your father’s gone?” Castiel ventured.

“What? And leave Dean to mess around with demons and monsters by himself?” Sam asked. “He’d be dead within a month.” It wasn’t meant to be a joke.

Castiel nodded, unsure what else to say. The dog jerked her head up, whining low in the back of her throat. Sam ducked his head and crooned nonsense at her, one big hand massaging her side. Castiel swiped through several more pages of the grimoire. _Reanimate a corpse for a year and a day. Command inanimate objects from a distance._

The dog barked and rocked to her feet. Someone outside shouted.

“Cas.” Castiel glanced up to find Sam frowning, nose in the air. “Do you smell that?”

Castiel didn’t have a chance to ask what Sam smelled. The barn doors rattled and something thumped against the wooden floor. One of the cows lowed.

“SAMMY!” Dean’s voice punctured the relative stillness. “CAS! COME DOWN!”

Sam and Castiel scrambled to the edge of the loft, Castiel still clutching the grimoire. They found Dean halfway up the ladder, eyes wild.

“Fire,” he uttered. He let go of the ladder and fell a good distance, crashing against the barn floor so Sam could start scrambling down. He descended with the dog under one arm, even as she wriggled and complained. Castiel lifted his head and saw black smoke billowing past one of the little windows.

“Is it going to reach the barn?” he called down to Dean.

“It’s already here!” Dean roared.

“Get the cows out of here!” Castiel ordered. He lurched toward the box of books and dumped the grimoire into it. He then threw as many of the Winchester’s possessions into the box as he could get his hands on, and could only thank God that there weren’t that many. He heard the cows lowing anxiously, Sam and Dean shouting. He didn’t know whether they were shouting his name. He could smell smoke.

Castiel began climbing down the ladder with the box perched on one shoulder, and now he heard Dean yelling at him that he was an idiot.

As soon as he was within reaching distance, Dean’s hands appeared to rip the box from him.

“I said get out of here!” Dean shouted into his ear and Castiel didn’t reply as he ran for the barn door. The smell of smoke swelled around him, and he could hear it now: a low crackling roar. The wind buffeted at Castiel as soon as he left the barn and he realized that a single ember landing on the house would be all it would take.

Sam stood a few paces from the barn, and his hands somehow found Castiel’s shoulders. He didn’t let go. Dean appeared a second later, leaving Castiel flanked by Sam and Dean while he watched orange flames eat up the bone-dry grasses surrounding the barn.

Slowly—everything was coming to Castiel as if from a long distance—Castiel became aware of figures darting around the mounting flames. One of them materialized into Naomi.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Dampen these sacks.” She thrust an armful of burlap sacks at Dean, who had to drop the box to accept them. He looked to Sam, who followed him toward the pump. Castiel followed Naomi to where the fire roared like something from Sodom and Gomorrah.

He watched himself accept damp burlap sacks, throwing them over the more manageable fires. His brothers and sisters moved past him at dizzying speeds.

At some point someone shouted that the barn was lost. And then the task became creating fire breaks, tearing away dried grasses that sliced at Castiel’s skin. The heat was unbearable when the barn collapsed behind him.

Hours. It must have been hours later that the fire burnt itself out and Castiel could sit down in the dust, gaze at the land before him, and register with a dull thump that the wheat field was gone.

He could follow the fire’s path. It had started in the southern fallow field, which had been full of grass and wildflowers back in the spring. That had become dry, dead plant matter in summer, and now charred earth.

Like a smudge of charcoal, the blackness streaked from the fallow plot to the wheat plot—the black wheat field made Castiel’s gut lurch—on through a stretch of long wild grasses, ending at the barn.

This morning they had been in the middle of threshing. Sam, Dean, Castiel and Anael had been cracking jokes at one another while they guided the mare and mule over the scythed wheat, letting heavy hooves knock the grain from the stalk. They were going to start raking in the stalks tomorrow for haying. Start collecting the grains to be stored in big burlap sacks. They were going to sell some sacks in the big city. Or to the miller. Or keep them to turn into Rachel’s good, thick bread.

Gone, now. Castiel thought he might have heard someone crying but he didn’t look up to see who it was. His eyes hurt from smoke and heat.

“We still have the house,” someone—Castiel thought it might have been Samandriel—said in a low voice. “We still have most of the livestock and the corn and the vegetable garden.”

“That’s not going to be enough,” someone else said.

Castiel stood up at long last. The stiff south wind ruffled his hair, bringing the smell of burnt things.

He began walking, curious despite himself. As he neared the damage, he could appreciate how much the fire had overtaken. Their landstead was not huge, but it wasn’t small either, and Castiel could imagine the speed with which their fields had succumbed.

The ground crackled when he walked on it, and. At one point Castiel looked down and found a large black lump, like a misshapen rock. It took him a moment to spot the feathers and a half open beak. Castiel turned away and gagged.

***

No one ate much for dinner. It felt inappropriate to consume anything, and everything smelled burnt. Castiel ate his greens in small, ginger bites while nearby Uriel spoke to Michael in a voice lower and rougher than usual.

“These prairie fires,” Uriel was saying, head resting in one hand. The sunlight caught at his wrist feathers—pitch black and edged in silver. “I should have known better. Drought, heat, wind. Perfect conditions.”

“No one’s blaming you,” Michael told him.

“If we’d been working out there,” Uriel continued. “We might have stopped it before it reached the wheat. Or the barn. Castiel and the cows were in there.”

“They’re all alive,” Michael reminded him. Uriel said nothing.

Next to Castiel, Dean huffed and poked at his food. He’d been restless all day, but not with an aura of shock like everyone else. His restlessness had tinges of anger, and Sam kept hissing things to him that Castiel never quite heard.

Bible reading felt subdued that evening. Michael did not say anything before he spoke, looking down at the gilded edges of his Bible. His thumb ran over the paper marks he’d stuck into the pages, making a _fwip fwip_ sound.

Next to Castiel, Sam shifted so that his knee ended up just touching Castiel’s. Neither of them pulled away.

“We’ll read from the Old Testament tonight,” Michael finally opened the cracked Bible, “From the First Book of Kings.” Castiel straightened. He enjoyed the Book of Samuel as a rule. “Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle,” Michael read, his voice growing sonorous, “and were gathered together at Shochoh, which belongeth to Judah, and pitched between Shochoh and Aze'kah, in Ephes–dam'mim.”

It was the story of David and Goliath. And if Castiel recalled correctly, they would soon enter the story of David’s friendship with Jonathan, King Saul’s son.

“And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul,” Michael’s voice filled the room. “And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.” Castiel exhaled at that part; he couldn’t help it.

Michael kept them up until David hosting Jonathon’s son Mephibosheth. “Then Ziba said to the king, ‘Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servant to do.’ So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table like one of the king’s sons.” Michael fell silent, then closed the Bible, a little puff of air expelling from its pages. The room stirred as if waking from a deep trance. Castiel watched Michael run one hand across his face, looking more weather worn than usual. His feathers, normally a brilliant white, looked grayed somehow. As if smoke and ash had gotten into the ink.

Naomi led them in prayer. Sam’s hand all but engulfed Castiel’s while on his other side Hael’s hand felt downright petite.

“Lord Father, guide us through this shadowed valley,” Naomi said. “‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.’” Hael’s grip tightened convulsively.

Everyone dispersed to bed without much conversation. Castiel went to the linen cupboard to find quilts to spread across the kitchen floor, on which Sam and Dean could sleep. He returned to find Dean standing before Michael, Sam several paces behind him with his hands curled up at his sides.

“We’re just more mouths,” Dean was saying. “We’ll go into town until Gabriel comes with the crankshaft. No work here anyway, is how I see it.”

Michael’s eyes folded at the edges.

“We’ll have to rebuild the barn,” he told Dean in a soft voice. “Can’t enter winter without a barn. You still have your uses, boy. We will sustain you and your brother as best we can.” Dean stood tall and square-shouldered, but Michael carried the gravitas of a Pastor.

In the end Dean ducked his head and murmured, “Yes sir.” Sam’s shoulders dropped. Castiel released his breath in a long whoosh. Michael lifted his head to extend a small smile to Sam before he moved to the stairs. No one stirred until he’d disappeared from sight. Castiel dropped his gaze to find Sam speaking to Dean in low, indistinguishable words. He left them to set the quilts up on the kitchen floor.

The brothers entered a few minutes later, as Castiel rearranged a quilt for the third time.

“Hey Cas.” Castiel looked up to watch Dean lower himself like an old man into one of the abandoned kitchen chairs. Sam toed off his boots and settled on the corner of the quilts, legs bent and hands clasped. “Thanks,” Dean said slowly, “for saving our stuff.” Castiel blinked, then recalled the box.

“You deserve to keep it,” he said.

Dean’s mouth quirked.

“Yeah,” he said.

It was getting late. They’d have work tomorrow, but Castiel had no desire to leave the two men—no, boys. His boys. He didn’t want to leave them.

Something whined outside. Sam started.

“The dog,” he said, looking between Castiel and Dean with wide eyes. “She sleeps in the barn usually.”

Castiel felt the most peculiar urge to laugh at the expression on Sam’s face. Dean huffed, then tilted his head towards Castiel.

“Cas?” he asked.

“If she’s quiet,” Castiel said. Sam’s face burst into a grin and he all but bounded towards the door. Dean watched him with such naked affection that Castiel turned his eyes away.

The dog trotted into the house, tail wagging and side glued to Sam’s calf. She left him to make her rounds of the room, greeting Castiel and Dean with a perfunctory sniff before collapsing back at Sam’s feet. He reached down to rub at her side.

“D’you know when she’ll have the puppies?” Sam asked Castiel.

“No clue,” Castiel confessed. “Ask Samandriel; he might be able to guess.” The wood in the oven shifted, and the three of them remained silent for a time. Sam still petting the dog, Dean watching Sam, Castiel watching all of them.

“Okay,” Dean stood, stretching. “Long day tomorrow.”

Castiel didn’t stir as Dean yanked off his boots and Sam shucked his outermost shirt. When Dean had stretched out on the quilt, he glanced up at Castiel. Sam followed suit, and Castiel stared at them with his mouth just open, knowing what he wanted to say and unable to say it.

And then Sam—blessed Sam—scooted so that he lay on the far edge of the quilt. He tugged Dean toward him. Castiel walked quietly over to them, taking a moment to extinguish the oil lamp before he lay down beside Dean. The man’s eyes were soft at the edges, and he didn’t say anything as he shifted one of the quilts to cover Castiel.

The kitchen was dim, the only light came from the dull orange of the stove. Dean radiated warmth and still smelled like smoke and wet burlap. Castiel heard the dog shuffle near Sam before she settled down with a long sigh.

***

Castiel strode through lights. They were, Castiel thought, stars. But they were no stars he recognized. These burned fierce and dangerous, and there were millions of them. More than the sky could have contained. They shone blue, red, white, yellow colors Castiel didn’t know how to name. He walked among them and felt himself swell with grief, though it made little sense.

When Castiel opened his eyes, it was apparent that dawn had yet to come. The stove presented enough light for Castiel to see the silhouette of Dean’s face. Castiel shifted, and Dean turned his head. The light refracted through the wetness in his eyes.  
“Did I wake you up?” Dean asked, and his voice came thicker than usual. Castiel’s lips pressed together.

“No,” he said, though he didn’t know whether that was a lie or not. He took a second to scrutinize Dean’s face, and Dean let him. “We’re all fine, you know,” Castiel said, not sure why he felt the need to express that. “You saved our lives.”

Dean exhaled hard.

“Yeah well,” Dean didn’t finish, and one hand came up surreptitiously to wipe at his eyes. Another long silence. “I hate fire.”

“Why?”

Dean did not so much grin at the ceiling as bare his teeth at it. “My mom,” he said. “Died in a house fire. I carried Sammy out the door.”

“How old were you?”

“Four? Five?” Sam made a small, whistling snore. “Wasn’t about to let fire take you guys too.”

Castiel almost didn’t do it, but then he shoved his thoughts aside and reached out under the covers until his hand found Dean’s. He squeezed it once, and was about to let go when Dean’s hand tightened around his. He was still staring at the ceiling.

Castiel exhaled, then tucked his nose into the quilt and shifted a little closer to Dean. He drifted back to sleep without meaning to.

He slept with them the next night. And the next night. And the next.

***

Castiel didn’t think he’d recognized—any of them had recognized—how much stock they’d been putting into the wheat. With it gone, it felt as if they all stood at the edge of a broken bridge with no way forward. The only thin rope left was the prospect that Raphael and Gabriel might bring food back from the city. They’d mainly gone to purchase things like steel nails and a new plow blade, but they might still return with a bag of rice or beans. Michael sent them a message asking them to do as much, but no one knew whether the letter would reach them in time.

Breakfast was only ever tea now. Supper, usually their big midday meal, was a carefully organized thing. Dinner had disappeared altogether. The tight feeling in his midsection was Castiel’s constant companion, and he’d forgotten how it could wear on him. He could tell his body was slowing down; everything became heavier, longer, more strenuous. His muscles atrophied, and he recalled what Uriel had explained once, that when the body ran out of fat it attacked muscles. Then organs. Picking apart itself as well as it could, trying to survive.

Not that the community didn’t offer its help. Bread and egg and beans appeared at their doorstep, delivered by children or women or men with dust in their clothes and wind-burnt faces. Offering their goods with quiet smiles and, “Mama said God bless you,” and “No no don’t argue, you’d do the same for us.”

Michael ordered Rachel to accept the gifts and then to make sure the messengers were fed and watered before being sent home. They were a large household and everyone in town had little to spare, so the extra food did not dispel hunger, just assuaged it a little.

Balthazar returned from his visit with the other family branch a few days after the fire, surprising Castiel, Anael, and Naomi with his arrival as they sifted through what remained of the barn. His normally cheerful demeanor was grim when he approached the house. Castiel wished they’d had some way to warn Balthazar before he came home to burnt fields, but messages were unreliable.

“It’s to be expected, Cassie,” Balthazar shrugged that night before Bible reading. “I’ve seen plenty of prairie fires on the way here, with the drought and all. Not that much of a surprise.” But his shoulders were slumped and the vivid blue of his ink feathers looked dulled somehow, like Michael’s were.

Castiel glanced over at the Winchesters. They sat a little closer than usual these days, probably feeling unwanted despite Michael’s words. Castiel wished he could smooth out the lines on Sam’s brow, relax Dean’s square shoulders, but he didn’t know whether he had the right touch.

Michael read about the Israelites wandering the desert that night. Castiel twisted and untwisted his fingers as God sent his people manna, then partridges to assuage their hunger. Castiel supposed Michael wanted to comfort them with the story, but all Castiel could do was wonder where their Moses was and whether any God still resided in the heavens or if the War had killed Him as well.

***

Castiel, Sam and Dean were splitting wood behind the house when Raphael and Gabriel returned with their wagon full of goods from the city. They didn’t see their approach, but Castiel paused when he heard Gabriel’s voice somewhere above him. He craned his neck and found an open window. Michael’s office, most likely. He let his ax still.

“When did the fire happen?”

“Almost a week ago. The livestock survived but—“ Michael trailed off. “I wrote you a letter about making sure you purchased food.”

“We didn’t get it,” Raphael said.

“I see.” A pause. “Well? What do you have?”

“A sack of black beans.”

Silence.

“Did the grain not sell well?” Michael asked. He didn’t sound angry per say, more restrained.

“Everyone’s trying to sell right now,” Raphael’s voice came low. “Prices were the lowest I’ve seen them in a while.”

Wood scraped against wood, and Castiel imagined someone sitting down. Sam lifted his head and noticed for the first time that Castiel had been standing still for a full minute. He cocked his head, and Gabriel’s voice reached them.

“We thought the plow blade was the most important thing,” he said. “We purchased that instead of more food.”

“I know,” Michael replied. “I understand.”

More silence. Dean straightened as well, looking between Sam and Castiel.

“Do we have a plan?” Raphael asked. Someone sighed.

“I’ve been eating every other day, recently,” Michael said. “I might ask you two to do the same.”

“Of course.”

“Naomi thinks she can eek us into the corn harvest. But it’s going to be a long trek. I worry for the younger ones. Hael and Samandriel and Castiel.” Something squeezed Castiel’s chest. Beside him, Dean shifted in the dusty soil.

“We always have the livestock,” Gabriel offered. “We can slaughter one of the cows, can’t we? Samandriel says they’re drying up anyway.”

“Perhaps.”

Another long silence.

“Faith,” Gabriel all but burst out. “Faith, right Michael?”

Castiel didn’t hear an answer.

***

Dean and Sam paid with the last of their coin with for the crankshaft and gasoline that Raphael and Gabriel had brought back from the city, “It’ll take a few days to get this into Baby,” Dean told Castiel that night as they sat in the kitchen. “But we’ll be out of you guys’ hair real soon.” Castiel nodded mutely.

Sam sat near the stove with the dog on his lap, his hair hanging into his face. As if sensing the tension in the room, the dog released a low whine. She’d become more cumbersome of late, belly now notably rounded. Sam’s hand dove into the scruff around her neck.

“Will you go back to town tomorrow?” Castiel asked. Dean nodded, not quite meeting his eyes.

They settled themselves on the quilts that now smelled firmly like the three of them. Sam was in the middle this time, and Castiel took comfort in pressing himself against Sam’s broad back, his nose just brushing his hair. Sam smelled like dust and dog and baked clothing. Sam leaned back into Castiel, just a little, and the sigh he made swelled through his body like a gust of wind through a canvas sail.

***

Sam and Dean had promised that they would return to the farm before they left town, to say goodbye and pick up their box of possessions, but that didn’t stop the sick feeling in Castiel’s gut when he watched them start the trek into town. He’d have liked to walk with them, but his family needed his help rebuilding the barn. It did the cows, mares and mule no good to be exposed every night, even though the fact that Michael would be selling or butchering one or all of them was all too apparent. The beans were a welcome relief, but they’d only last so long.

The corn wasn’t doing well either. When Castiel was sent to examine it the day after the Winchesters had returned to town, he spent a long while staring at the shriveled brown leaves. The cobs, where they appeared, were far too small for the time of year. Castiel lifted his head and swept his eyes across the field: the same in every direction. Just like the vegetable garden where despite Hael’s ministrations the plants were dying off one by one. Just like every other field in the area, so that whenever Castiel saw their neighbors he saw gaunt faces.

He crushed a brittle leaf in his fist and whipped his face up to the sky.

“Well?” he demanded of the empty, blue sky. “Are we desperate enough?”

Castiel sent his foot crashing through the pathetic corn stalks nearest to him, sending several of them cracking and flopping to the ground. Castiel ground out obscenities and kept going, killing the stalks that weren’t going to give him or his family anything to eat anyway, letting the pure destructive energy course through his blood.

He plowed forward, stumbling when he left corn and entered long grasses instead. Castiel whirled around and assayed the damage he had caused. A line of broken stalks showed his path, the leaves ground in dust or fluttering in a dry breeze.

Castiel sank into the grass, ignoring the way their dry blades sliced at his skin. He wanted…something. The Winchesters. Rain. To understand the feathers inked on his skin. For the letter to have reached Raphael and Gabriel. To remember where on earth he’d come from.

He didn’t cry; it wasn’t that kind of desperation. But his chest felt heavy, his back sore and Castiel wished he knew how bad the Israelites had felt in the desert, how much hope they had abandoned when manna finally fell from the heavens. It would help to know how much further he had to sink.

He sat there for a long, long time, and when he stood the sky had edged into twilight.

He didn’t speak for the rest of that night, nor all through the Bible reading, nor as he and Anael prepared for bed. His sister glanced at him a few times, but she was tired and hungry and she probably sensed it would be better to keep her mouth closed rather than ask what was wrong.

***

The stars reappeared in Castiel’s dreams that night. He sat amongst them and peered at them, certain by now that there was something here he was missing. Something very obvious.

He stood—only not really, there was nothing at all to stand on—and approached the nearest one. It was a blood-red thing, deep and dangerous. Castiel thought to put a hand out, but then the star turned and Castiel cried out in surprise at the face he found there.

It was not a human face. Not in the slightest. But it did look at him, and before Castiel could move away it uttered some word that sounded like “brother.” It surged forward and engulfing Castiel in its flame and oh, stars were hot, hotter than imagining. Castiel felt his skin crackle and peel away, his eyeballs melt from their sockets, and something else, something hot and familiar burst from the remains of himself, and he heard a great whoosh of win—

“Castiel!”

Castiel gasped and reached out to clutch at Anael’s shoulder, finding her cool and solid.

“Nightmare?” Anael asked sympathetically. Castiel nodded, then froze with a wince. Slowly, he looked down at his black inked feathers. They looked normal, but when Castiel reached to touch them, they felt hot. Not body temperature hot, but like the banking embers of a great bonfire.

“Castiel?” Anael repeated. Castiel looked up at the familiar face of his sister.

“I had a dream,” he muttered. He looked back down at his feathers. “Anael, where did we come from?”

“Sorry?”

“How did we end up here? Farming and with each other.” His question was met with silence.

“I don’t know,” her words came slowly. “I was too young to remember.”

“Me too,” Castiel said in a low voice. He didn’t say anything else.

“What did you dream about?” Anael pressed.

“I can’t remember now,” Castiel lied. Anael looked dubious, but she straightened and cocked her head down at him.

“Will you be all right?” she asked.

“Yes. Sorry I woke you up.”

Anael shook her head, and reached out to ruffle Castiel’s hair.

Twenty minutes later, she was snoring again, but Castiel stared up at ceiling with the certainty that he couldn’t have fallen back asleep if he’d wanted to.

Which was why he was bleary-eyed when he went into the kitchen that morning. He accepted his tea from Rachel and was about to settle into his favorite chair when the door burst open and Samandriel entered with a wild look in his eyes.

“The li—“ he faltered, bracing his hands on his knees and sucking in a deep breath. Everyone in the kitchen had frozen, staring at their brother with wide eyes. “The livestock,” Samandriel managed. “Gone.”

A beat of ringing silence, then a clatter as several people sprang forward to see with their own eyes. Castiel arrived just behind Michael and Raphael, slowing when he saw the empty tether where the mule, cows and horses had been kept. Michael was examining the ropes that had held them.

“Cut,” he stood and wiped dust from his hands.

“Thieves?” Hester ventured, voice thin. No one spoke for a long minute. Balthazar arrived in a small jog, the dust swirling around his ankles with each footfall.

“The chickens,” he said. “They’re gone too.”

A strange noise rent the air, and Castiel looked up to find Hael with her face buried in Rachel’s shoulder. Rachel laid one hand—trembling—on Hael’s dark hair.

Castiel looked at his family, still gray and shadowed with the sun still behind the horizon, and felt his stomach roll. A thought, almost not his own, though he knew it came from him, said – _How far we have fallen._

“We—“ Michael pressed a hand to his eyes. “Raphael. Gabriel. Naomi. My office please.” The four of them moved to the house, and soon the rest of the family followed suit.

“Shush, darling,” Rachel was telling Hael. “You don’t give me enough credit. I can spread a cup of beans across all of us without you noticing a thing.” Castiel fell back even more, so he wouldn’t have to hear Hael’s response. He imagined everyone going to the kitchen to finish their breakfast teas and contemplate that this last, tenuous hope had also fallen away. Castiel didn’t think he could handle it, so he made a beeline for his and Anael’s room. His tirade yesterday must have used up all his anger, because all he could do was slump on the floor against the dresser.

A few minutes later, his eyes fell on the box stored under his cot. A box full of the Winchesters’ items. His heart leapt.

Castiel scrambled to a crouch and yanked the box out from under his cot. It took a little digging, but he soon found the grimoire and threw open its pages.

“Rain,” he muttered to himself. “Rain spells.” But even as he scoured the pages twice, he didn’t find any mention of a basic rain spell; only a flood one. The fertility spell wouldn’t work, that applied to humans. He did find a spell to make crops grow but after he looked at the description he decided that it wasn’t designed for droughts. After a moment of thought, Castiel turned to the section labeled: “Great Spirits and Powers.”

Right there. Castiel’s hand hovered above a faded illustration of a woman surrounded by fruits and flowers. “Mokosh. The Slavic life-giver and life-taker. Goddess of fertility and the plow and moisture. Her worshippers are few now, and she can be persuaded to help those who summon her.” Castiel cut his eyes down to the instructions and surprised himself with how feasible it looked. He could do it today. Now.

No one noticed when Castiel left the house, the grimoire under his arm and a waterskin in his hand. He all but sprinted to the brittle cornfield; the only place with cultivated plant life right now, however feeble it was. He found the space where he had kicked down stalks the day before and cleared away space to expose the dusty soil. The book propped open, he set about making the pattern shown on its pages. When he’d finished, he opened the waterskin and poured its contents into the center of the pattern. The water stained the soil dark brown and created rivulets. Castiel spoke the words written in the book; it was a language he didn’t understand and he hoped he was pronouncing it correctly. The water ran out. Castiel finished the words.

He sat, frozen, listening for something.

The sun climbed from the horizon; its light showed the decimated corn, the damp soil, and Castiel’s pale, thin hand. Castiel blinked, then stood, suddenly feeling infinitely foolish. He looked around at the land, his chest growing leaden.

Then, a breeze. Not the dry ones he was used to. This one felt damp, warm, and carried a musk of rain. Castiel looked up and started to find a…not a woman. She was absolutely not a woman. A woman-shaped entity staring at him with eyes green as Dean’s. A woman who flickered with impressions of green crops and blights and fat babies and dying men and pregnant women. She did not speak for a long while, looking Castiel up and down as if puzzling something out.

“You called for me,” she …again, _said_ would imply something human. She did not speak. It felt more like she placed thoughts in Castiel’s mind that rang so loud he might as well have been hearing them.

“Yes,” Castiel turned towards her. “I need help. You’re Mokosh?”

“That is what humans once called me,” she agreed. “What some still will call me. Fewer these days, but they are there.” Her eyes were still narrowed. “What do they call you?”

“Castiel.”

“No, your true name.”

Castiel frowned. “Castiel is the only name I have,” he said.

“It is not,” Mokosh said. “Castiel is the condensed version of your name, as Mokosh is mine. My true name is not something a human throat can pronounce, not something human ears can hear. The same goes for you, I think.”

“That’s not what I summoned you for,” Castiel said, digging his fingernails into his palm. He gestured to the land around him. “This. I need you to fix it. Give us rain or make the crops grow stronger. We’re going to starve. We already are starving.” Mokosh examined the land around her, still flicking unsettlingly.

“I understand,” she said.

Castiel’s heart fluttered. “Thank you,” he uttered. She gave him an unreadable look.

“You must give me clear commands,” she said.

“Make the crops grow,” Castiel nodded. “Make…make everyone in this area stop suffering. Ease it for them.” He glanced down at the book and in halting words spoke the words to release Mokosh from the patch of damp earth.

Mokosh stepped forward—a woman giving birth, a field of green wheat, a handful of seeds—and she reached out to touch a stalk of corn. With the contact, the leaves sprang up and flooded emerald green. Before Castiel’s eyes, the cobs swelled and the stalk surged upwards, almost taller than him. Mokosh kept moving, speeding her steps, and Castiel wanted to laugh.

She disappeared into the stalks, and he stepped forward to follow her, but he saw something that stopped him.

And he froze.

The corn stalks she left behind were sagging. He watched as they died. Not just weakened by drought, but decimated. Gone. As Mokosh drifted from the field, the rest of the corn followed the same pattern. Surging into bounty at her touch before collapsing into decay.

Goddess of life-bringing and life-taking. Oh Lord.

If Castiel had been able to speak, he might have cried out. Instead, he forced himself forward. It all felt like a dream—the worst ones where no matter how hard he pumped his legs, the air had become molasses and his muscles useless. His sight blurred with straight-out panic.

Mokosh strode across the fields, the flashes of green descending into brown around her. She was a flood that surged toward the house that held Castiel’s family. She did not enter the house so much as descend upon it.

Castiel didn’t hear anyone shout.

When he threw open the door, he found a splash of red on the floor that must have been Anael’s hair. Next to it, the large dark face of Uriel. Hael’s blue eyes staring into nothing. Heaving a sob, Castiel stumbled through his family and clambered upstairs. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t move with any coordination. Hael had been so hopeful that she’d find safety with them.

He flung open Michael’s office door in time to find Mokosh—a field of newly sprouted seedlings—press a hand to Michael’s face. Castiel watched as Michael…bloomed. His face lost its gauntness, his skin its dustiness. He stood for several breathless moments as tall, handsome and strong as Castiel had ever seen him. From his eyes an unearthly light shone, and for a split second Castiel saw six wings explode from his back like banners of heaven. He was gorgeous. The most gorgeous thing Castiel had ever seen, and the pure beauty, the pure holiness he found there, made him want to look away.

Mokosh too seemed dazzled, and she gazed at Michael with shining eyes. She pulled her hand away almost reluctantly, and watched Michael as he collapsed at her feet.

She looked down at his face—dusty once more—and shook her head. She flickered into a collection of mourners. A burning pyre.

“Your God is a beautiful artist,” she told Castiel. Her voice was distant.

“Stop,” Castiel tried. His voice crumbled out, and he gripped at the door to keep himself standing. Mokosh looked at him with heavy, liquid eyes.

“This is my essence,” she said. “It’s like the tide, my dear. I give and take in the same breath. You must have known that.”

“I di—“ the word collapsed into a breathless sound “I didn’t. Stop.”

“These creatures,” she gestured at Michael, Naomi, Raphael, Gabriel. “They suffer no more, as you asked. They were suffering so deeply. None of you were really meant to live as humans.”

“You didn’t tell me you’d kill anyone!” Castiel roared.

“How else was I to give them life?” Mokosh asked. She turned away.

“STOP!”

Mokosh was a flood again. She washed over Castiel and for a moment he thought she’d kill him too, but then she was gone and Castiel was left to trip over to the window and watch their neighbor’s field swell green only to fade brown in a few minutes.

“I…” Castiel sank to a crouch beside the window, unwilling to look at the bodies in the room with him. She’d head toward town soon, once she finished with the fields. Castiel’s head shot up.

The burst of adrenaline let him run down the steps, out of the house, across the yard. He didn’t stop when he hit the road, sprinting in the early morning light despite his hungry body.

He ran, trying to find hints of Mokosh’s movement in the fields he passed. He came across a wheat field dead and silent as a grave, and he tried to press his legs to carry his faster, even as his chest seized with another surge of panic.

Perhaps it was the blood roaring in his ears, or the fact that he had his head ducked, but Castiel didn’t hear the engine until it was right on top of him. There was a screech of rubber, a blast of engine heat, and Castiel had to dive to the side to avoid getting run over. He struggled out of the ditch as doors clacked open.

“Cas?”

Castiel released a ragged sound and gripped the callous hand offered to him. He slammed himself into a familiar chest, and buried his face in the clothes that smelled like sweat and dust. He was crying—not sobbing, he didn’t have time for that—and two voices were circling him, ringing with concern and questions.

“Cas. There’s something big,” he heard Dean saying. “It’s moving fast—Cas, buddy, you hearing me?”

“Give him a minute,” the chest beneath Castiel’s face vibrated. Castiel inhaled, as if to draw strength from Sam’s scent, and turned around to find Dean leaning toward him.

“It’s called Mokosh,” Castiel croaked. “Slavic god of fertility.”

“An old god?” Dean clarified. Castiel nodded. Dean’s face paled. “How the hell did that end up here?” he demanded. “Old gods are dangerous.”

“I summoned her,” Castiel said, pulling away from Sam even as the man tried to extend a comforting hand. “I asked her to make our crops stronger.”

The air was too silent while Castiel watched Sam and Dean’s faces. The birds must be dead. The insects too.

“The grimoire,” Sam uttered, voice distant. “You used that, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know,” Castiel said. The words sounded pathetic, even to his own ears. “The crops were dead and the livestock stolen—”

“The town is dead,” Dean interrupted him. “Cas, the town is dead. We just barely got away.”

“I’m…I have to stop her,” Castiel croaked.

“How? Do you have the grimoire?” Sam asked. Castiel shook his head, seeing in his mind’s eye the old tome lying in dust and destroyed corn stalks.

“You both drive out of here,” he told Sam and Dean. “As fast as you can.”

“Yeah no,” Dean gripped Castiel’s upper arm. Castiel tugged at the hand, shaking his head.

“She’ll kill you.”

“And you’re immune?”

“Probably not, but she left me alone at the farm.” At his words Dean jerked his eyes up to Sam. Castiel looked up to find Sam watching him with sympathy carved into his face.

“We’re not leaving,” Sam said. “This is kind of our work.”

Castiel inhaled, sharp enough to hurt, then slumped slightly.

“All right,” Castiel conceded. “Just…let me try first.”

“Try what?” Dean demanded. But Castiel could only shake his head, not sure how to voice the growing certainty in himself that…well.

Dean released Castiel’s arm. “Get in the car,” he ordered.

Castiel obeyed, moving to the still-growling automobile, all black and gleaming. He climbed into the back seat and as soon as the door had slammed shut, Dean sent the car surging forward. They turned within the road and roared back to town, Castiel telling them to look for dead fields.

It took them several minutes, but Mokosh appeared soon enough in the form of a wash of rain. It was cruel, Castiel thought, for her to appear like that when they’d been deprived of real rain for months. Dean let the automobile come to a rest, and Castiel tumbled from the back seat to dive into the wheat field. He heard his name, but ignored it as he slapped plants aside.

He met Mokosh in the middle of the field, and she paused at the sight of him. She did not look angry, or triumphant. She simply _was_ , and that was almost more frightening. One hand remained on a head of wheat, and it continued to pulse golden and healthy.

“You need to stop,” Castiel tried, hearing his voice almost break. “It’s enough.”

“You asked for the entire area to grow,” Mokosh said. “Let me finish.”

“You can’t.”

Mokosh kept walking. She flowed around Castiel toward the road. Castiel whirled around and his heart lurched to find Sam and Dean bounding through the wheat toward Mokosh.

He didn’t think when he did it. It just made sense to spring forward and catch Mokosh’s arm.

He bloomed.

It felt like sunshine in his blood. Like heavy rains and surges of river water and stars falling through his mind. The stars expanded, shifted, exploded across Castiel’s vision until he swam in nothing but their presence. He could feel the power inside him breaking the levee of his skin. His vessel cracked, starting at the feet and surging up. And he burned. He burned with Holy Fire, which meant that his wings had exploded away from his skin. His real wings, not the corporeal pictures that were melting away from his skin. He felt alive, as if he sat at the peak of his Grace.

Mokosh came into focus then. As a human Castiel would not have been able to distinguish her facets as anything but flickering glances, but here they stood out clear and unquestionable. She was like him. A thing of faith and gods, of humans’ desires and hopes and fears, crashing together to form an entity that although not human itself, was purely of humanity.

She was fading. Her image and name had dulled in the minds of the creatures that had made her. They envisioned other things when they thought of sex and new plants, water and blights and a fickle earth.

She was weak. Yes, weak, but she had enough power to maintain the upper hand here. She had only to release contact for Castiel to disintegrate. Michael hadn’t known that. Perhaps that was why he’d been defeated.

“I have prayers,” Castiel told Mokosh as he gripped the place where she touched him. “I have peoples’ faith.”

“Not you,” she reminded him. “Your creator does.”

“Angels pick up enough,” Castiel told her, thinking of Hael and her angel prayers. “Enough to be dangerous.” Mokosh still didn’t look frightened, though she regarded where Castiel gripped her with quiet annoyance.

The stars had faded, and Castiel watched the wheat field swim back into view. He glanced around despite himself and found Sam and Dean a few paces away. Their souls blazed inside them like twin supernovae, and Castiel understood how these creatures had managed to create beings like him and Mokosh. He didn’t know what he looked like to them, but they were squinting and had crouched, unsure stances. Fear and uncertainty radiated from them.

Mokosh followed Castiel’s gaze. She crashed toward the two men.

“NO!” Castiel cracked open his wings (folded up so long) and buffeted her off her track. They landed several paces away from the Winchesters, Mokosh flickering from the strength of new plants to the sweeping passion of lovers.

“Castiel!” he heard one of them—Sam or Dean, it almost didn’t matter—and the voice sent a surge through Castiel. He scrambled to hold Mokosh still, even as she billowed and roared like all the water in the world.

“Castiel!” the voice came again. Something grew in Castiel, something a little like a seedling. Or a puppy in the womb. Or an ember in a squat little stove. He clamped onto Mokosh, and he noted her struggles flagging. The Winchesters shone in his awareness, and he could feel their belief in full now. It had trust, love, faith, strong hands, broad shoulders, dimples, green eyes.

Castiel shuddered with the power they poured into him. Mokosh stared up at him with wide eyes. She released a low cry when she disintegrated in Castiel’s hands. All the water, fertility, life-giving, life-taking essence of herself exploded outward like so many grains of soil. Castiel stumbled, fell into hard earth.

He lay there for eons, it felt. Sensing the empty soil with with the dazed sense that he’d won somehow.

“Cas?”

Castiel lifted his head—no, not his head. Not in the way a human understood a head—and found Dean and Sam a good stone’s throw away. They had their eyes squeezed shut, their legs braced as if against a stiff wind, yet Sam was trying to advance forward in tiny steps, and Dean was following. Castiel noted, in a distant way, that he was a giant in this form. He could scoop up these souls without a thought. He could kill them with no effort.

“Wait,” he uttered, and watched Dean wince. That wouldn’t do.

It took a moment to think it out, and when he started to compress himself, the pain ripped the angelic version of a scream from him, which must have nearly shattered Sam and Dean’s eardrums. But Castiel kept going, willing himself into fewer and fewer dimensions, a smaller and smaller space, until he resembled his human self as much as he could manage. He stared up at a blue sky flanked by dead wheat, tried to say something, then pitched into darkness.

***

Something warm.

“Did you find anything?”

Not soft, but comforting.

“There were some preserves in the cellar.”

Leather.

“It’s enough.”

Smelled like smoke still, however faintly.

Castiel inhaled, and a hand appeared to card through his hair.

“So,” the voice above and around him said. “Freaking angels.”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“Wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“I was guessing a pantheon of old gods, actually.” Silence. “It explains a lot though. The tattoos, the protection from demons and monsters. I mean, even hidden, I think enough creatures sensed something powerful lived here and didn’t want to risk it.”

“But an old Slavic god finished them all off?”

“They were caught by surprise, Dean. And Cas invited her in so, you know, that helped.”

The hand was still carding his hair.

“Poor bastard.”

“It’s my fault,” the voice that Castiel was beginning to suspect belonged to Sam said. “I brought the book here.”

“Hey now, that’s enough,” Dean warned. “I already know Cas is going to be a mess, I don’t need you doing the same thing.” Sam sighed.

“What I don’t get,” Dean said after a long silence, “is why these guys didn’t know what they were. I mean, what happened?”

“Maybe the War that Cas was telling us about,” Sam offered. “Maybe they fell and this was…what was left. Or the best way to preserve themselves.”

“It’s just…man, if that was _the_ Michael, like _the_ archangels Michael and Raphael and Gabriel…they were starving on a tiny farm in the middle of nowhere, Sam. Something got seriously messed up.”

“Yeah,” Sam’s voice sounded heavy. “It’s kinda tragic.”

Castiel rocked his head slightly, aware that he was resting on someone’s thigh. He wanted to speak, he knew, but his throat felt raw and his lungs deflated. The carding stopped.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice came low. Castiel tried to make a sound, any sound, but it was too hard. He grew limp again and felt unconsciousness drag him back into sleep.

***

When he woke up again, he was on a scratchy blanket. For a split second he thought he was on the kitchen floor, but then he spotted stars wheeling above him. They were beautiful. And distant.

Sam and Dean coalesced as sources of warmth on either side of Castiel. Dean was asleep, turned toward him with his hand resting on Castiel’s chest, as if to keep him still or shield him. Sam was sitting up on Castiel’s other side, one leg running along Castiel’s side, the other crooked and with his forearm rested on top of his knee. A gun hung from one hand

Castiel must have made some noise, because Sam tilted his head down, his hair shifting.

“Cas?” he said. His voice, though a whisper, shot through the night too harshly. It was so silent otherwise. Castiel shifted, then hissed at the pain radiating across his body.

“Don’t,” Sam suggested, his hand coming down to curve around Castiel’s face. “You’re pretty beaten up.”

“How badly?” Castiel asked. His throat still felt shredded. Sam visibly hesitated.

“Your body kind of…tore apart and reformed. It looks really raw still.” Castiel stared up at Sam, the waxing moon giving enough light to see the shape of his face. “Do you remember that?” Sam asked, voice hushed.

“Yes.” Castiel’s murmured. “I remember everything.” His throat thickened without warning. He didn’t want to wake up Dean, but he turned his face into Sam’s leg and squeezed his eyes shut even as tears seeped from him. Sam’s big hand cradled the back of Castiel’s head, and the noises Sam made reminded Castiel of what he used to croon to the dog when she was nervous.

That, for some reason, was what did it. The dumb dog who was going to have puppies, who had wandered into their farm and never been given a name. She’d found the Winchesters and she’d adored Sam and she was dead now, she and her pups both.

Castiel opened his mouth and wailed into Sam’s leg. He couldn’t get a decent breath in, and Sam seemed to recognize it because he pulled his leg away and extended himself alongside Castiel. Castiel rocked into Sam’s shoulder instead, mortified by his eyes burning, his nose clogging with snot, his stomach churning with approaching nausea. Still, he still cried because a few centuries of being all but human meant he didn’t remember a better way.

He must have kept it up for a few hours, until his head pounded and his abdominals ached. Dean woke up at some point, and Castiel knew he and Sam exchanged quiet words above him. Sam didn’t move away, but Dean did stand eventually. He returned within a few minutes.

“Cas,” he said. “Hey, drink something.” Castiel hiccupped a few times, then peeled his face from Sam’s soaked jacket. He lifted his head as far as if would go. Dean helped it a few inches more, then poured a stream of water into Castiel’s dry mouth. It tasted like manna.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked.

“It’s forgiven,” Sam murmured. “You’re fine.”

Nothing at all was fine. Dean gave him another drink of water, and then stretched out at Castiel’s back. Sam’s breath rustled Castiel’s hair. Castiel—eventually—fell asleep again with the vague sense that, despite his aching body and sick stomach and headache, he’d landed somewhere safe, at least.

***

Dean told them the next morning that they needed to leave soon. Mokosh’s work had been thorough, and there was little on which to survive. He stood a little ways away as he said it, arms crossed and eyes sweeping over the dead land. Castiel, propped up against the Impala, forced himself to do the same.

“Cas is still pretty weak,” Sam reminded his brother.

“He’ll have the backseat,” Dean tilted his head. “You know how these things work. We’re going to have all kinds of creepy crawlies sniffing this place out. Ghouls, especially.” Sam didn’t argue. Castiel stared into his lap and wondered whether angels-turned-humans could come back as ghosts.

“Before we go,” he lifted his head. “Can we go back to my home?” Dean and Sam shot him identical expressions; it reminded Castiel of their twin souls.

“Are you sure you want to do that to yourself?” Sam asked.

“I have to,” Castiel told him. He waited as Dean and Sam held a brief argument via eyebrows and expressions before Dean readjusted his jacket.

“Okay,” he said. “If you want to.”

Sam ducked down to lift Castiel like he was a child. Castiel grabbed at Sam’s neck as Dean opened the Impala’s door and helped Sam maneuver Castiel inside. The leather smelled comforting somehow. Sam and Dean rounded to the front seats. The engine rumbled to life. They moved forward.

Castiel had imagined riding in an automobile for years. Now all he could do was stare at the slice of sky visible through the window and feel the remains of his crying-induced headache.

At some point he lifted his hand to wipe at his puffy eyes and paused to find the blank skin where his feathers had once been. His arm drifted back to his lap.

They drove maybe five minutes. When they stopped, Castiel struggled to a sitting position despite Dean’s protestations. Through the window, the farm looked like it always had, sans the barn. The house with its long-faded white paint. The fence. The chicken coop.

Except without smoke trailing from the chimney. And dead bodies scattered inside.  
“We need to burn it,” Castiel heard himself say. Dean made some noise.

“Why?” Sam asked.

“Angels are Holy Fire,” Castiel said, almost unaware of the words before they left him. “They shouldn’t rot. They should at least burn.” A long silence. Then Dean exited the car and Sam followed. Castiel watched Sam round to the back, opening the door and reaching for Castiel.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Very,” Castiel shifted himself toward Sam and wished his body had recovered from the fight with Moloch enough to let him walk.

At Castiel’s request, Sam sat him at the front steps.

“Anything in there we should grab?” Dean asked.

Everything, Castiel thought. Rachel’s favorite pan and Anael’s hairpins and Gabriel’s card set.

“Your things are in a box under my cot,” he said in a measured voice. “That and…Michael’s Bible.” He felt guilty sending the Winchesters into the house, but his body was useless and he’d have been a hassle.

Dean stayed with Castiel while Sam fetched the items. It didn’t take long, and Sam emerged looking grim.

“Burning the house is probably a good idea,” was all he said.

It didn’t take long. The grasses were still bone dry and the house wooden. The three of them remained by the car as the fire ate up the only place Castiel had ever really called home. Besides Heaven. But that had been a long time ago.

Castiel’s eyes remained dry when the roof collapsed.

They climbed back into the car. Castiel held the Bible in his lap as they began to drive, leaving the fire to cleanse what it could of the town.

***

Castiel lost track of the days. He slept more often than he remained awake. Food and water appeared in Sam or Dean’s hands once in a while, and he consumed it without comment. His dreams left him somewhat untroubled. Sometimes he saw his family at the supper table laughing at something Uriel had said or Anael showing him the Society pages or Naomi reading through their finances with her wire spectacles. Those made him ache, in deep terrible ways, but they didn’t destroy him.

What came closer to that were the dreams where Michael bloomed at his full glory one last time, where Sam and Dean got caught up in Mokosh’s influence, where Hael’s eyes stared into nothing. Those dreams could start Castiel awake with a cry, and then Sam or Dean would have to turn around and make sure he was all right. Sometimes Castiel slept with none of those things in his head, and instead it was a steady stream of quiet voices that filtered through him like water percolating a rock bed. He suspected he’d always heard these prayers and quiet words of faith, however subconsciously. Now they echoed to him both in sleep and the waking world, and Castiel was still unsure on how to address them.

When he was awake and alert enough, Castiel watched the world stream past at dizzying speeds or flipped through the Bible. He read the stories as familiar as his own hands, examining Michael’s scrawled notes. Things had shifted, though, because he had a memory of Luke and Mark; what Sodom and Gomorrah had looked like when they’d burnt, the livid fear of the Israelites when Uriel had walked in Egypt and brought silent death to the eldest sons.

At one point he recognized himself in the story of Sarah and Abraham entertaining angels. He’d stood beside Barachiel while he explained that Sarah would bear her husband a son, and she’d outright guffawed at him. Castiel had liked her, despite what he knew she’d do later to Hagar.

That memory—his and not quite his at the same time—had been unnerving enough for Castiel to abandon the Bible for two solid days.

They rolled through towns but never quite stopped. Dean informed Castiel that they were taking him to an old family friend. A man named Bobby, who would be able to give them shelter.

“And then what?” Castiel asked.

“I mean,” Dean cleared his throat. “You’re an angel. You can do whatever you want, you know.”

That was true in a sense, Castiel considered. He still held a human form, but he could feel his Grace boiling beneath his flesh and bones, as if eager to be used once again. And he’d become aware, in a creeping way, of two arcs of energy extending from his back. When he moved them, it sounded like the ravens that had lived in their barn.

“What about those other angel groups you talked about?” Sam asked. “You could find one of them.” Dean’s green eyes found Castiel’s through the rearview mirror.

“I’m not sure what I’d gain from that,” Castiel confessed.

“It’s other angels,” Dean said. “Your family.”

“They’re unaware of what they are still,” Castiel said. “I don’t want to the responsibility of deciding whether or not to inform them.” A beat of silence. “I could find Heaven,” Castiel leaned forward, and Sam tilted his head back to him. “And find out if all of us fell.”

Maybe he’d find God.

“You think there are still angels up there?” Sam asked.

“Maybe,” Castiel scrunched his nose, calling up fuzzy memories of the heavenly host. His wings twitched, as if eager to travel there now. Castiel watched trees speed past them for several moments before he spoke again. “I don’t know though. The War was an ugly one.”

“You remember it now?” Dean asked. His voice was cautious, if not curious.

“A little,” Castiel sighed. “It wasn’t supposed to happen, you know. Happened several centuries before the planned End of Days.”

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“Some betrayals on our side,” Castiel tapped his fingers against the seat. “Lucky breaks and concentrated efforts from our enemies. Factions. Like I said, ugly. Even the archangels…” He faltered, because his mind was trying to place the Michael with the worn face and carefully organized sermons next to the favored son of God, the one who shone with such Grace that even angels like Castiel had trouble looking him in the face. It wasn’t meshing well at all.

Castiel rubbed at his face and tried to ignore the lump coalescing in his throat.

“Cas.” Sam had turned around completely. Dean glanced away from the road as many times as he could afford to.

“It’s amazing,” Castiel confessed. “We must have been humans for centuries and never remembered what we were. We just…lived.”

“Not even Michael or Raphael knew?” Sam asked. Castiel considered it, and then shook his head.

“I don’t think so. Though…” he swallowed and tried again. “It wasn’t the worst thing.” Sam raised his eyebrows questioningly. “We had hard years,” Castiel explained. “But it humbled us. And we…we were a family, you know. We had good times together. We believed in each other.” Quite literally, he considered.

“But heaven,” Dean prompted.

“What about it?”

“That’s where you’re headed?”

Castiel rolled in his lips.

“Maybe one day,” he said. “When I’m ready.” He looked between Sam and Dean. His wings curled in closer to himself as he considered the lives they led—travelling in an ancient machine, hunting monsters and demons. It would be a hard trek, but he had Grace in his touch now. He’d be useful. He’d have his boys with him. Maybe, just maybe, his God at his back.

“I’m better off here, for now,” Castiel said.


End file.
